Wednesday, 31 August 2016

Not everyone who supports Jeremy Corbyn is a mindless cultist intolerant of any idea or person that dares to disagree. Indeed I have several (not many) but some friends who support him and have been more than polite in their disagreements. There are also those who support Corbyn's domestic agenda but baulk at his foreign policy and connections.

Trouble is there are many who are exactly intolerant, vicious and accusatory to the extreme.

An argument broke out on one young woman's Facebook page which got rather heated. Natasha got angry about the attacks being made on her. The result? Tony Greenstein wrote a blog (a hate site I refuse to link to) denouncing the poor woman as if she were an Nazi, calling on people to "unfriend and block her on Facebook. In doing so he published a gratuitous number of pictures of his target which led to Natasha's address being published on-line. Not by Greenstein, but some other miserable excuse for a human being obviously trying to intimidate the woman into submission.

This is one of the worse atrocities being carried out on-line by a veritable army of Corbynite trolls in the name of the "new, kinder politics" the messiah man himself promised us.

When you have stopped laughing at the back there is a real seriousness to this growing problem. The Labour Party has been swamped by not the Trots, though there are many, not enough to cause the current mayhem, but by the army of protesters that shout in the streets on demonstrations are have politics of the slogan rather than any real idea of how to go about changing the world for the better.

For them "if you are with us you are against us" is central to their blinkered view of the world.

Add to that the new and naive to politics you have a very dangerous and certainly toxic movement that has frankly destroyed the Labour Party for the foreseeable future, if not for good.

The Times published a survey on the Labour Party leadership campaign showing the "new wave" outnumbered the old membership who were on the brink of leaving, but not ready or willing to join something else. An attitude I have also seen among those I know. Old loyalties die hard. "Always a Labour man/woman" they say.

But political parties do die and frankly Labour is already dead but like the proverbial zombie continues to have it's "pound of flesh". Corbyn will win the leadership election. The moderates or whatever else you would describe them as will be trapped. The threat of another leadership election next year bores the pants off of most people. Labour's credibility has gone out the window.

Corbyn will go on to lose the next general election. His current disciples will bore at having to do the hard regular work required of a parliamentary party and will soon revert to demonstrations pickets and shouting loudly in the streets as new causes come their way.

A new alternative is needed but this will be a generation away unless those who want better pull their bleeding socks up swallow their outdated pride and get a move on.

In the meantime the protesters will achieve the opposite of their intentions: A permanent Tory revolution.

Monday, 29 August 2016

As a fan of science fiction it will come as no surprise to readers that I take an interest in science fact. The discovery of a new planet in a "nearby" solar system interested me. The National Geographic reports:

Observations made with a telescope in Chile have indeed revealed a planet about as massive as Earth that orbits Proxima Centauri, which is a cosmic walk to the corner store at just 4.24 light-years away. And if conditions are right, the planet is in an orbit that’s warm enough for liquid water to survive on its surface.

Of course whether it supports any kind of life, intelligent or not is currently unknown. Getting there presents a wee bit of a problem. With current technology it was suggested it would take 20 years. A long way off them considering we haven't even landed people on the nearest planet to us, Mars.

I live in hope that before I pass on that definite proof of life will be discovered somewhere in this vast universe we exist in.

Meanwhile whistle-blower or traitor (whichever you prefer to describe the man as) Edward Snowden has been telling us about a cover up of a "millions of year old "civilisation much closer to home. Underneath the earth in fact and claims to have "proof" from the CIA that the US government (and I would assume others) have knowledge of this.

Now like life on other planets I just simply "believe" must exist somewhere in some shape or form. Beneath the Earth? It's not beyond the realms of possibility that some lifeforms exist in caverns under our feet.

But a civilisation responsible for UFO's? Nah.

This short video introduces to this bizarre "theory" and was the shortest I could find. Life's too short, but some of these conspiracy/alternative archaeology/UFO videos can be entertaining. Just extrapolate from a possibility that no one can prove and there you have it.

Atlantis, Lizards, Alien bases on the moon (nuked according to Snowden, I'm sure we'd have noticed...), lizards, the Illuminati. The list is endless and well, it is a bank holiday. So prepare to suspend disbelief or laugh (your choice) here's the video.

Saturday, 27 August 2016

The organisation Wikileaks was founded to "open governments" and "expose their secrets". However their group has run into a lot of trouble, firstly by their leader, one Julian Assange fleeing to the Ecuadorian Embassy in London to avoid alleged charges of rape in Sweden and secondly their idiotic release of not government information, but material that relates to private individuals.

Whistleblowing group WikiLeaks is under fire for publishing Saudi government data that outs gay men, leaving them at risk of attack.

Saudi Arabia is one of the world’s most repressive countries when it comes to LGBT rights, and gay people can face punishments ranging from a fine or flogging up to to the death penalty....

One of the cables includes private details of a Saudi man detained for ‘sexual deviation’ – the charge for homosexuality – raising fears of reprisals or ‘vigilante’ attacks.

It doesn't stop there. The London Times reports:

They also included at least 124 medical files, identifying HIV patients, people with mental health issues, sick children and refugees according to analysis fro Associated Press.

A bewildered consultant in Amman, Jordan, confirmed to the Times that details of his cancer patients were amongst those listed. "It is completely illegal . Medical files are confidential documents between patients and physician. Revealing such private information puts people in serious danger." Dr Nayef al-Fayez said.

Quite. Exactly why did Wikileaks think putting this information in the public domain was acceptable? They claimed they "didn't have the time" to sift through this material with "one person" to do their "work".

Unacceptable.

It is totally irresponsible to put information in the public domain without checking whats in it. Government files or not, people lives have been put at risk, others exposed to danger and ridicule. If there are any consequences for these private individuals those responsible for these leaks need to be brought to account.

There are some, if not plenty of things that are not appropriate for the public domain. Wikileaks should be ashamed of itself.

But with their leader in hiding the likelihood of this organisation of internet vigilantes ever taking responsibility for their actions is remote.

Wednesday, 24 August 2016

It's been a strange couple of days even for the Labour Party "leadership" election contest. Firstly Jeremy Corbyn and his disciples complaint about no seats on the train backfired as Virgin showed CCTV of the "messiah" walking past empty seats to sit on the floor.

Who ever dreamt up that little stunt should be given the dunces cap.

Meanwhile the moderates "last, best hope" was on the TV this morning arguing that the Brexit deal should be "put to the public vote" before being ratified.

Erm, I'd call that a second referendum by any other name and that's simply not on. Like it or not (and I don't) the people of this country have voted to get Britain out of the EU. The politicians just have to get on with it, no backtracking.

Owen has already put his foot in it over negotiating with ISIS. As for Corbyn's atrocities, they are well documented on this blog and elsewhere.

As people declare their votes in the election openly on social media I just despair. Labour has destroyed itself.

Rumours of a "split" after Corbyn's re-election is announced circulate but whether the moderates actually have the balls to go through with it remains doubtful. The only thing of which I am certain is that Theresa May will be our Prime Minister for a very long time.

Exactly the opposite of what these people had hoped to achieve, but who in their right minds would vote for the Labour Party now?

Monday, 22 August 2016

As Jeremy Corbyn stabs our allies in the back and the treacherous Galloway and his cronies head back to Labour I thought this little sketch from Peter Cook & John Cleese sums up Labour's defence policy. (Just substitute modern enemy of democracy of your choice for "Herr Hitler")

Sunday, 21 August 2016

The Respect Party was founded in a blaze of publicity bt George Galloway, some Islamist politicos and the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) in 2004. Galloway became its first and last MP and a number of councillors were elected in areas with large Muslim populations such as Tower Hamlets, Bradford and part of Birmingham. They were joined by the sole SWP councillor in Preston.

The group was fraught with contradictions and infighting from the beginning, eventually leading to a very public spat and split as Galloway fell out with what his supporters called the "control freaks" of the SWP in 2007. Lyndsey German and John Rees led a new style "Respect" which despite getting support from the General Secretary of the PCS Union was never more than the SWP and it's supporters.

The SWP suffered an internal upheaval as leading members of their group, Keith Ovenden and Rob Hoveman stayed as bag carriers for Galloway. Eventually the SWP leadership fell out and the German/Rees faction left to form Counterfire, a tine group that has moved away from "Trotskyism" towards an odd mixture of pro-Islamic anti-imperialism and Stalinism influencing the anti-West Stop the War Coalition.

Galloway has lost his parliamentary seat and Respect was believed to have declined to just around 300 members. He wishes to rejoin Labour now that Corbyn is in control of the Labour Party, but would have difficulty in rejoining not just because he was a member of Respect and it's leader but also was originally expelled from Labour so only the NEC can now rule on his return.

In an almost publicised move Respect has voluntarily unregistered with the Electoral Commission which means it can no longer stand candidates and is effectively closing down. The reason for this is clear. Galloway and at least some of his supporters will want in on Corbyn's Labour Party.

Respect was one of the misnamed political organisation this country has ever seen (along with the StWC) with Galloway and his supporters trying to use use the "Muslim" community for it's own purposes causing much division wherever they operated.

Respect will not be missed and Galloway still has his lucrative media deals with Russian TV and others in the reactionary Islamic world. Unfortunately this dangerous demagogic politician will just not disappear.

Saturday, 20 August 2016

The following article was blocked from Facebook as it was considered "offensive". Considering some the material the company allow on their pages I have republished Phil's article in solidarity against censorship. This has also been posted on my Facebook page.

Like cat piss on your carpet, the stench comes back regardless of what you do to it. I'm talking, in this instance, about the Labour Party and anti-semitism. Despite an inquiry that issued clear guidelines and repeat condemnation by Jeremy Corbyn, John McDonnell, Momentum, and everyone associated with the party's leadership, it will not go away. So what is going on? As I've said on occasion, if you have recurring phenomena then we're talking about social relationships, not something that can be put down to individual oddities. And, to note, just because it has become a factional football doesn't mean anti-semitism is not important or isn't happening. It is. Where then does Labour's issue with anti-semitism come from?

What the party isn't is institutionally anti-semitic, in the sense it structurally discriminates and disadvantages members from a Jewish background. In fact, the argument can be turned on its head and the case made it's institutionally anti-anti-semitic, in the same way it is also institutionally anti-sexist and anti-racist. Before anyone rolls their eyes and gets a letter from compliance for it, this isn't the same as saying sexism and racism aren't problems in the Labour Party. Rather it is the banal observation that because of work done by previous and current generations of women and BME comrades, formally the party is against chauvinism and racism. Members can and do have action taken against them for making these unwelcome views known and engaging in unacceptable behaviour. And the party tries to overcome the legacies of sexism and racism through the use of shortlists, diversity training, and so on. That said, because Labour is a mass party and not an ideologically pure sect, its membership has, to greater and lesser degrees, the tendency to reflect the attitudes and prejudices of the constituency it reflects. If you like, the institutionalisation of progressive attitudes and the activists that uphold them are in a ceaseless battle against what we might euphemistically term "unreconstructed" views constantly being fed into the party from its relationship with wider society.

However, this can explain why racism and sexism remain party problems but it does not account for anti-semitism. While there have been spikes of anti-semitism over the years, it hasn't had a mass base or following in British society since the 1930s. What is it about the Labour Party now that is attracting anti-semites in disproportionate numbers and to the Corbyn campaign in particular? I think it's down to a mix of naivete, stupidity, and in a number of cases, hardcore racism.

Dealing with the first, Jeremy Corbyn has a long record of anti-war activity. His 33 years in Parliament have seen him take up the cudgels against British foreign policy, whether it was popular or politic or not. Similarly, he has never hidden his criticisms of US and Israeli policies in the Middle East either. Unfortunately, this kind of stance often comes with astudied silence about the countries and organisations at the receiving end of Western bombs and, in some cases, de facto united fronts with outright supporters of these regimes/outfits. These characters can be most unsavoury. You could say that some folks who are especially active in anti-war work are a little care free when it comes to associating with people who, on the one issue of opposing such-and-such a conflict, there is a shared position. And so where opposition to the criminal policies of the Israeli state are concerned, you might find people in this milieu, especially those new to it, getting rather over-enthusiastic in their denunciation of Israel's actions. They might bang on about Zionists and Zionism, might shout off about "Zios", and make clumsy, inappropriate, and offensive comparisons between the Nazis and the Holocaust and Israel and the occupation. And they do it because too few within this milieu actively challenge it. So as Jeremy has risen to prominence, this sort of clumsiness has been imported into the Labour Party and become more visible than has hitherto been the case. Something I've been worried about for a while.

Overlapping with this is an anti-establishment politics at its most basic and primitive: conspiracy theorists. If porn is the main contribution the internet has made to popular culture, opening mass audiences to the idiocies of conspiracy theorising comes in a close second. You can understand the cognitive basis for these views. The world is a complex scary mess with clear winners and losers, and can appear as if a shadowy elite has it all under their thumb. It's not. There is no one at the helm, and not even being the richest nation with the most powerful military the world can impose its will at will on the world, or defy the head winds of global economic turbulence. Conspiracies then are comforting because there's a weird form of security knowing someone's in charge, and that you stand out from the herd because your keen brain has connected the dots and cut through the bullshit. After the September 11th attacks, the conspiranoid 9/11 Truth Movement were an identifiable, anti-war trend that not only peddled nonsense about remote controlled airliners and buildings pre-packed with demolition charges, but fanned the flames of anti-semitic conspiracy theorising. It was a false flag operation run by Mossad, or Jewish employees were warned to stay away from the Twin Towers on the morning of the attack being two choice examples. The problem is this sort of thinking never disappeared. It scooped up gullible adherents here and there and continued to fester on email lists, forums, and Facebook groups. And so, just like the "careless" people this variegated bunch have also joined up and used their conspiranoia to make sense of Labour's faction fight. The links between some Labour MPs and Israel via Labour Friends of Israel are "proof" they are taking orders from Tel Aviv. Some are associated with very rich people, who happen to be Jewish, and, of course, because some sitting MPs helped save the banking system from collapse they're in the pay of the Rothschilds. These entirely unwelcome elements, again, aren't drawn to Jeremy because he's one of them, but rather in the terms of their anti-semitic conspiracy theology, it's him versus the Zionist lobby and therefore deserves their support.

These people are badly mistaken and seriously deluded, and I would say there are a portion of them who don't even realise they're being anti-semitic. But on those occasions it happens time and again, and despite it being pointed out to some of them carry on willy-nilly, then they have passed over into outright racism.

And this brings me to the third kind, those that really do have anti-semitic issues. It doesn't matter how they arrived at this perspective, the fact is they single out Jews and attribute all kinds of social problems to them. Classic scapegoating, classic racism. Wherever they are found they should be turfed out of the party, no ifs, no buts. However, while these people do undoubtedly exist, are there others at it? While anti-semitism in wider society is diminished, there are still enough people miles away from left wing politics with axes to grind. Grabbing a Momentum twibbon and using the furore around Labour anti-semitism to vent their bilge is easy enough to do. And then there are obvious troll accounts like this and this operated by folks unknown to keep those flames fanned. Imagine being an opponent of Jeremy Corbyn and cynically using racist abuse to "prove" his support is anti-semitic. Is that the mindset of someone you'd wish to be associated with? Do you think that sort of person should have a place in the Labour Party?

I am glad that most people in our movement have woken up to anti-semitism, and I hope wherever comrades find it a swift complaint to validation@labour.org.uk follows in short order. Anti-semitism is not just the socialism of fools, as August Bebel put it, but is the very antithesis of a politics founded on solidarity and collective action. It's in all our interests to be on our guard against it, and attack it wherever and whenever we can.

Wednesday, 17 August 2016

When the leadership election led to the opening of new, slightly more expensive options of getting a vote in the process for a while I considered signing up. Then came Owen Smith. I was not impressed and decided against joining.

Given the recent court decision not to allow this group a vote it's a moot point really.

However given Owen Smiths comments (backtracked or not) that ISIS should be negotiated with it's clear to me I made the right decision.

Corbyn is a fool and so is Smith it seems. The end of the Labour Party as we know it is at hand.

ISIS are just like the Nazi's. Committing genocide against Yazadi's, Christians and even other types of Muslims.

There can be no negotiation. ISIS cannot be left in control of anywhere as these areas will be nothing but concentration camps. We did not negotiate with the Nazi's we cannot do so with ISIS. They just have to be destroyed. By any means necessary.

It's no surprise that the latest poll in the Standard shows Theresa May has more support than Jeremy Corbyn amongst Labour voters. As Nick Cohen put it on Facebook tonight, Corbyn would lose even if only Labour voters had the vote.

And Smith is no better. He was frankly a non-entity who came out of nowhere because those that could lead the party have stayed behind the lines as the Corbynistas wreck what's left of their party.

The infighting will not end when Corbyn inevitably wins the leadership election. Momentum are already preparing for the next stage of their takeover and have organised a 4 day "event" that will take place parallel to the Labour Party conference which has been endorsed by Corbyn himself.

The only hope for the future would be a new party but such a "nuclear" option is fraught with difficulties and is far from certain to be a success. the SDP failed but times are changing. A space is growing for a new centre/left party but the will to create this does not yet exist.

Tuesday, 16 August 2016

Whilst the majority of people are comfortable in their genders there are around 1 in 10,000 people who can be described as transexual or other. That's around 0.01% of the population. Awareness of the difficulties such people face in society there has been a growing movement to defend their rights. Absolutely right. People should not be made to feel uncomfortable about themselves by bigots and the like.

However like many worthy causes sometimes the desire to end discrimination can in itself lead down the wrong road.

A panel of councillors said official forms should include the gender-neutral option of 'Mx' – pronounced like 'mix' – and that honorifics could be phased out completely from documents in the future.
Now there is no problem with allowing for the use of Mx (pronounced "mix") in the same way the use of Ms has become widely accepted, but why abolish "Mr &Mrs"? That's not being "inclusive" at all. I would imagine that the vast majority of people myself included are quite happy with such a prefix and would prefer to continue using it.

You don't fight discrimination by trampling on other people's rights and such measures could cause a backlash. Use Ms, Mx by all means but allow the rest of us a choice too.

Monday, 15 August 2016

It's hard enough being a soldier on the front-line fighting for your country. Even more so when a bunch of quisling shysters come after you with claims of abuse. The Times reported today that:

A law firm accused of making false claims against British troops in Iraq is to close at the end of the month.Public Interest Lawyers run by Phil Shiner was stripped of it's contract to undertake state funded cases. The Legal Aid Agency, the body that oversees funding said it was " clear that the breach with (the firms) contract are proven and warrant investigation.

Worse still:

Mr Shiner, a solicitor described as "the "scourge of the army" faces allegations that he accepted illegal payments for cases brought against British soldiers.

Apparently this band of lawyers, I mean vultures has some 1500 cases on it's books lodged by Iraqi & Afghan citizens all out to make a buck.

It cost £23 Million pounds to fund an enquiry into all this. Those involved in this firm must be brought to account and the money recovered.

One soldier at least is considering suing Shiner. All those should do it and not forget the others involved in this dreadful firm.

None of this comes as a surprise. Some years ago I visited the Home Office in Croydon on union business and was appalled to see dodgy solicitors drumming up business from those seeking asylum so that could also get their pund of flesh from the taxpayer.

This brings me to the rather old story that The Times chose to run on it's front page today about those caught by immigration who subsequently apply for Asylum after years of living here illegally. It's no wonder that there is so much hostility amongst the general public to high levels of immigration when they see so many of these people get allowed to stay.

Asylum should be applied for on entry to the UK. Retrospective applications from illegal immigrants should not be accepted. But you can bet there's a whole industry of lawyers making a buck out of this.

Then there is the seeming inability to deport criminals and others who should not be here on bogus human rights grounds used by criminals who commit crimes here.

Sunday, 14 August 2016

The following post is taken from Tom Watson on Facebook in which he illustrates one example of a Trotskyist group entering the Labour Party. There are of course others and even the old Militant Tendency is trying to get back in.

There are others who used to belong to the various sects including the Left Unity Party who are not exactly "Trotskyists" but should also be treated in the same way.

In recent days an increasing number of people have made the false claim that I labelled all our new joiners as "trotskyists". This is not true.

The quote "old hands twist young arms" derives from an interview I did with the Guardian where I raised concerns that trotskyist organisations were targeting our young members. Incidentally, I also raised the issue of returning to shadow cabinet elections - which in my view is imperative whoever wins the leadership. It's probably the only way a front bench can be reassembled and united.

My claim about groups like the Alliance for Workers Liberty is evidenced with publicly available information, if people care to look. Some might not like me saying these things but I'm not making this stuff up, as others have claimed.

If you do want to look at the facts, there are more details below.

At the Alliance for Workers' Liberty conference on 21-22 November 2015, two months after the AWL was de-registered by the Electoral Commission, the group adopted three documents, entitled:

These three documents outline a concerted strategy for members of the AWL to infiltrate (or, to use the language of the documents, "intervene") in the Labour Party with the explicit intention of influencing the party to indoctrinate “more people of revolutionary socialist ideas," "advance and transform the wider labour movement" and to focus "on drawing in, organising, propagandising among, and recruiting among, the new people (especially the new young people) mobilised by the Corbyn surge."

The reference in the above to "young people" is instructive, given that the document 'Student Activity 2015-16' outlines a specific plan to infiltrate university Labour Clubs to revolutionary socialist politics, with the aim of "organis[ing] and politically hegomon[ising] these people,". The document 'After the Corbyn Surge' spells out this priority - "youth work is particularly important for renewing the movement and for convincing a new generation of socialists."

These documents clearly demonstrate a concerted effort by AWL to gain influence within local parties and student groups, to "consolidate leftwing victories" by "winning officer roles and policy votes," to "break the right [of the Labour Party, defined by the fringe left as anybody who does not share their politics wholesale] quickly" and engage in local parties by "circulat[ing] motions, blogposts and literature." Going further, the adopted platform of the AWL as of November 2015 was that "all AWL members should be members of the Labour Party unless specifically agreed; doing Labour Party work of some kind should be the norm," "in every area and at every level.”

This campaign continues - the July 2016 issue of the AWL’s newspaper Solidarity splashes the headline ‘Flood the Labour Party’ with a call for members to step up their infiltration (or “intervention”) into the party.

The group's platform calls for Labour councils, like the one in Brighton & Hove, to "refuse to implement cuts" - that is, to set illegal budgets that would bring Tory-run DCLG bureaucrats into city hall to run the city and the deselection of MPs.

Saturday, 13 August 2016

The decision of the Court of Appeal to support the Labour Party's appeal against allowing recent members to vote in the leadership election has caused consternation amongst not just Corbyn supporters but others as well has led to some unpleasant and unwarranted speculation and abuse.

I woke up this morning to reports that the world of Twitter was being treated to the latest outburst of the lefts ever increasing problem with (cough) Israeli's or Jews to be more accurate as one complained about "Zionist control of the media. The latter remark belongs to the world of the far-tight, or so I always thought but is now firmly entrenched in the far-left as well.

The Corbynites have long blamed Zionists for raising the problem of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party despite own goals caused by Gerry Downing aand others. Jews are "in control of the media", responsible for the slave trade (according to some activist called Jacqueline Walker) and the Labour Party's woes.

The guy who tweeted "I don't know if this is true but the court judge in Labour vs Labour today was born in Israel" didn't even bother checking his facts as someone responded to him. More so why would this even matter? The founder of the Socialist Worker Party, one Yagel Gluckstein (Tony Cliff) was. How does this "fact" bear on his political stance one way or the other. One's a "Trot", the others not. But when a decision doesn't go your way who do you blame....

At Islington North Constituency Labour Party someone was shouted down for raising the problem of anti-semitism. Would they have done the same to a speaker talking about Islamophobia? Of course not. Criticise and boycott Israel, but do the same to Iran which executes children, gays and Kurds, no. They'll join their messiah Jeremy on the clerical fascist TV channel Press TV.

The Press Officer of "Young Labour" went on Press TV with George Galloway to call on Muslims to vote for Corbyn not Owen Smith.

Does this explain some of the inherent bias against Jews in the Labour Party? It certainly raises questions about the mentality of the far-left that has hijacked Labour.

Wednesday, 10 August 2016

The decision of GMB union members to back Owen Smith for Labour leader has really upset Momentum and their fellow Corbynistas. They'll be out protesting against the result in Brighton tonight.

Apparently they thin the ballot was biased because it mentioned the words "electable" and Prime Minister.

Sigh. The Irony......

The turnout was low, very low in comparison to the number of members that are in the GMB but then most trade union ballots are low but at least the GMB actually asked it's members. Predictably Momentum supporters blame the "Trident effect" as so many GMB members would lose their jobs if Trident were scrapped. How dare GMB members defend their livelihoods.

Perhaps the other unions should actually ask their members. Unite who also have members whose jobs depend on Trident might not want Corbyn.

Meanwhile the PCS union which is not affiliated to the Labour Party not only imposed support for Corbyn on it's members without asking is rumoured to be pushing or helping the old Militant Tendency (now called the Socialist Party) to get re-admitted to Labour via the machinations of it's vainglorious General Secretary Mark Serwotka.

The Socialist Party have a bad track record. They bankrupted Liverpool Council in the eighties and have wrecked the PCS union cutting jobs and services despite telling the government not to do so with their "anti-austerity" programme.

Serwotka and his Militant cronies also imposed a worse pensions deal on their own staff than the government did on it's own members.

These Momentum & Militant types just use whatever they control for ideological reasons. They do not care about jobs or pensions only their own interests.

Trade union members are under threat by the far-left. Corbyn and his followers are a threat to our jobs and futures.

Tuesday, 9 August 2016

The maniac who murdered shopkeeper Asad Shah for having different religious beliefs was sent to prison for life today. In the Courtroom Tanveer Ahmed received cheers from a group of around twenty supporters as if his barbaric actions were justified in the name of their so-called "prophet". Ahmed himself was totally unrepentant with his Lawyer releasing a statement in which claimed:

"If I had not done this others would have and there would be more killings and violence in the world."

Only because there are other bigots like Ahmed inside the Muslim community who think they have the right to kill those with whom they disagree. They say they are offended by the views of the Ahmadi sect.

The only real offence of course is the murder and persecution carried out by the Islamist bigots themselves.

Ahmed will have to serve a minimum of 27 years. Personally I think unless he repents his views life should mean life as a deterrent against such individuals who set themselves up above the law and think they can act as executioner.

The trouble is that there are many other like him, The Muslim Times reported back in April:

Leaflets calling for followers of the Ahmadi Muslim sect to be executed as apostates (those who have abolished their religion) have been distributed in several locations in London. They are undersigned by a branch of the anti-Ahmadiyya Khatme Nubuwwat group in Stockwell Green, South London.In an interview with IBTimes UK, Khatme Nubuwwat Academy spokesman Akber Choudhry denied any connections with the Stockwell Green branch of the group, and disputed allegations of connections between the groups. The Stockwell Green group has also denied distributing the leaflets, despite them being found on mosque premises.

“I dispute the assertion there are shared trustees,” he said, also denying claims that the leaflets broke the law.

“There is nothing illegal in that leaflet. It is a theological position that should not be discussed in public but at the end it says one should not take the law into one’s own hands. We don’t share that view in the leaflet.”

The leaflets advocate Ahmadis who fail to repent be given “the punishment of a Murtad, which is capital punishment.” It later states: “Individuals cannot and should not administer this punishment.”The question that needs to be put to all who follow Islam is why they think it is acceptable to even consider death for those who differ from themselves. What are they afraid of? Is their faith so weak it does not stand up to scrutiny? As an atheist I would argue there is no god or gods and all theology is false. Man created god in his image and countless priests, imams and other charlatans have used blind faith to control the masses this way.

Islam is a particularly backward theology/religion. The misuse of blasphemy by it's practitioners is well known in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Iran where it is a tool for suppressing minorities and maintain the rule of patriarchal maniacs. It's also used for brutal personal revenge and mob rule.

Of particular concern was the final remarks of Akber Choudary as reported by The Muslim Times were these chilling words:

“The leaflet, though we are not related to Stockwell, expresses a theological position, however it is in bad taste and should not have been distributed to the public. It is an expression of a theological position and the laws of the state must be abided by.”

In other words kept in private and used when the law allows it. Like Pakistan where it is illegal to describe Ahmadi's as Muslims.

Until the barbaric bigotry at the heart of Islam is reformed and rooted out by it's adherents a watch must be made on the intolerant extremists who would carry out such acts.

The Muslim community must be at the forefront of a campaign to end the violence propagated by so many in it's name.

ISIS is only one manifestation of the hate manifested in the name of their prophet. There are many others.

Time to wake up to the modern world and embrace freedom of thought, equality for all, tolerance of those with different lifestyles an orientations. Trouble for the fundamentalists is that may threaten the existence of their religious supremacism and that's why they promote violence to frighten others.

Sunday, 7 August 2016

The civil trade unions recently balloted their members in the DWP over the new "Employee Deal" or Pay Offer to give it it's real name. The problem for members was that in order to get a pay rise they will have to agree to changing their working patterns to "fit in" with the introduction of the new Universal Credit benefit as it is rolled out across the country.

The "deal" is in effect a form of blackmail. Members will have to agree to earlier/later starts, one evening per week plus one Saturday in four. Each individual will agree this patter for a set period with their manager in advance. If they decide to "opt-out" (which has to be done by the end of the month or staff will have been assumed to accept the new conditions) then they become entitled to the higher pay rise.

If members "opted out" the pay award is derisory to say the least. Just 0.25% for this year and the immediate future.

Unsurprisingly a lot of members have reluctantly agreed to accept the new deal and were balloted by Prospect, PCS and the FDA which resulted in an unusually high turn out.

The story does not end there.

It was reported at the recent Prospect DWP Executive meeting that something like 12,000 people have opted out. This figure may not seem high in comparison to the number of staff in the DWP, but it appears these are disproportionately front-line staff. It's believed that the entire Benefit Centre in Sheffield has chosen the opt-out route.

This will obviously cause problems. members do not like being "blackmailed" and resent working evenings and weekends. Of course the situation differs across the department. In my own office I know of only one person that has chosen to opt out, but in offices where large numbers have done so the new operations will be effected detrimentally.

Morale in the DWP, particularly on the front-line in Job Centres and Benefit Centres is at an all time low. Less staff, increased workload including having to take on new benefit knowledge of ESA & Income Support, let alone preparation for Universal Credit has taken it's toll.

Friday, 5 August 2016

The teachers' union UNE of Ecuador (Unión Nacional de Educadores) is facing the threat of being shut down as the Ministry of Education has initiated proceedings for the union's legal dissolution.

According to UNE, the Ecuadorean government is seeking to dissolve the union in retaliation for the public statements made at the ILO Conference and the UN Human Rights Committee this year explaining, in detail and with evidence, how the government is systematically violating freedom of association.

The government justifies the dissolution by the implementation of a specific regulation, Decree 16, which concerns the registration of non-profit organisations. However the Ministry of Labour had assured the ILO earlier this year that Decree 16 does not apply to trade unions.

Education International and UNE call on you to urge the Minister of Education of Ecuador, Mr Augusto Espinosa Andrade, to halt the legal proceedings against the teachers' union and to respect the fundamental rights of the education employees and their organisations.

Wednesday, 3 August 2016

Sport is an important part of a large number of peoples lives. From school to grave thousands upon thousands choose a football team which becomes an almost religious icon around which lives are organised, clothes worn, flags waved. Of course there are numerous other sports across the world all of which have their participants and followers and international competition is the norm. Well except for American football which only they seem to play...

But then what would I know. Sport isn't and never has been an interest of mine. No interest. Bored me to tears at school and I've never changed in that attitude. I've plenty of other interests to keep me occupied, but I do recognise that sport brings many people including my girlfriend pleasure as she shouts for her team as I try to compose tonight's blog. Sigh.

However Sport has a political side, a tribal side and I don't just mean groups of supporters abusing each other. Sport can be very divisive. Hate of the other team seems to raise it's ugly head from time to time. In one serious football riot in 1969 actually led to a 100 day war between El Salvador and Guatemala in 1969.

But the Olympics, a world-wide event is supposed to bring people together as we all admire the efforts of the sportsmen and women taking part.

Except there's been a little problem. Doping. The taking of performance enhancing drugs. In the case of Russia seemingly compulsory for the bulk of it's athletes.

Not very "sporting" is it chaps?

Rather brings performances and medal winning into disrepute and to be fair the Russians have probably not been the only one's at it. They simply got caught out big time.

Can anyone trust the contest that has become the Olympics?

That alone is not the reason that I wonder about the worthiness of the Olympics. There are other, more pressing reasons, one's that are political and are particularly noticeable in Brazil, the hosts of the 2016 games.

A country mired in poverty, where crime is endemic in and around the slums of the cities, where notices have been placed in hotel lobbies telling athletes not to go out running "after dark" as it's "bloody dangerous".

So much money has been spent of these games that could have gone on building better housing, improving sanitation, medical care and economic development. Instead for just a few weeks Billions of dollars have been spent on facilities which will no doubt fall into disuse shortly after the games end. As indeed they have everywhere else that the Olympics have been held.

Instead of competing to hold the Olympics and wasting so much money why not build one permanent set of facilities in one place? The site would be bleeding obvious, Greece home of the original games and each participating country could contribute a proportional amount to it's construction and upkeep.

Tuesday, 2 August 2016

Political discourse has always has always had it's cruel side and looking at political cartoons over the ages shows how nasty this can be. However for the vast majority of people politics has been confined to the dimly lit corners of the pub after a few sherbets. Yes of course there were mobs rampaging over this and that, but for the most part ordinary folk did little except vote in recent times until the advent of the internet.

Much of the political debate that I read in my younger days was the sectarian texts published in various left-wing newspapers about how their rivals were anything from ultra-left through revisionism or were right-wing sellouts. And there was that word that stuck in my young mind "Pabloite, much used by the followers of Gerry Healy and the acolytes of Pierre Lambert though access to the latter was limited by my continuing inability (and indolence) towards learning another language, French in this case.

The point is that other than public schoolboy exchanges in the House of Commons or on TV programmes such as Question Time, access to political debate was somewhat limited. That's why the far left always needed it's papers to sell to the working classes. And of course to enforce their own groups particular line.

The days of Workers Press, Socialist Challenge and the News Line are long gone. Now it's all on line and instant.

The difference between publishing in print and on-line is indeed down to instant gratification for the "writer". Little time to think, just react no matter how hurtful and unconsidered the comment. Of course one still has to be weary of "libel" laws, which are much mis-used by the like of George Galloway and others, particularly the lawyers out to make a buck.

But most people don't resort to the law they just argue bitterly, get angry, upset and most of all entrenched. The nuances of the exchange of ideas are lost in the moment. Minds are blinked and frankly everyone, myself included is guilty of this at one time or another.

The debate over the future of the Labour Party is a clear example of how the use of social media has got out of hand. Insults, bullying, threatening, toxic just about sums it all up.

Social media has it's uses and it is actually possible to be on different sides without being rude or aggressive as I discovered after making contact with an old school friend on Facebook who happened to support Corbyn.

But other experiences in places like the PCS members forum and The Labour Party Forum, neither of which I am in any more was so different. There are those who think it's their right to shout you down when they don't agree.